Agence France-Presse has claimed to be the first agency to secure pictures of Muammar Gaddafi after he was captured in Sirte on Thursday.
The photo was originally taken in Sirte by a rebel fighter using a mobile phone. AFP photographer Philippe Desmazes was able to take a photo of the mobile’s screen a few minutes later and transmit the picture.
‘I was covering the fall of Sirte and heard gunfire a little further west of where I was,’said Desmazes.
‘The rebels explained to us that Gaddafi’s men had tried to break out at night a little further west. There had been fighting but this sounded more like celebrations than fighting.
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‘So I asked the fighters to take me there. When I got there, they showed me big concrete cylinders in which they said Gaddafi had been hiding when he was captured.
‘A little further on, I noticed some fighters gathered around a phone. I was lucky because I was the only one to notice them.
‘The owner of the phone showed me the arrest of Gaddafi which he had filmed a few minutes earlier. Given the ambient light, it was very difficult to take a screen grab. The fighters gathered round and gave me enough shadow to take the shot. I was really lucky.”
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AFP news director Philippe Massonnet said the scoop symbolised AFP’s ‘uninterrupted presence in Libya since February, the strength of our operation, and the courage of the agency’s journalists”.
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